Unlike any other president in U.S. history, President Obama hasn’t been held responsible for his own miserable economic policies. Why? Draw your own conclusions.
AEI Ideas reports how do you know the August jobs report was pretty bad? When the best thing you can say is that it might have met Wall Street expectations if not for a temporary shutdown in the port industry last month. (The motion picture and sound recording industry lost 22,000 jobs in August, according to the BLS.) Sure, the White House can argue, as economic adviser Jason Furman did right after the report’s release, that the “incoming economic data broadly suggest that the recovery continues to make progress.” But consider the following:
1. This was the jobs report that was supposed to reflect an economy kicking into higher gear. Goldman Sachs, for instance, was looking for 200,000 net new jobs. And whisper estimates were even higher. Instead, the economy added just 169,000 jobs vs. the 180,000 consensus forecast.
2. What’s more, June and July were revised down by 74,000 jobs, putting the three-month average at a paltry 148,000.
3. Even at 169,000 jobs a month, it would take an unbelievable 9 years and 10 months to return to pre-Great Recession employment levels, according to Brookings. See you in 2023 — assuming no recessions between now and then.More here
It doesn’t serve the country to treat President Obama differently than past presidents. It diminishes him and the country as well. Now he wants to take the country to war with Syria. It’s no surprise to me that he faces universal opposition. He’s been a lousy president siwth zero credibility.
